


Red as the Sap

by Dendro



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Rickon deserved better, Rickon's Skagosi Adventure!, Shaggydog is the BEST direwolf i miss him uwu, Skagos, The Old Gods (ASoIaF)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 08:01:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20336788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dendro/pseuds/Dendro
Summary: He had not prayed to his mother’s Gods since he realised that she was never coming home.Rickon, Shaggy and Osha are on Skagos, and slowly, slowly, he learns the ways of his Father's Gods. One day, he will take back his home.I don't know if I'm going to continue with this, but it's likely just going to be little snippets of Rickon growing up on Skagos.





	Red as the Sap

On Skagos, Rickon learned the truer ways of the Old Gods. His Mama, he remembered, spoke of Seven Gods that she brought with her to the North when she married his Da. She did not pray in the Wood to the Weir to the Gods of the Northerners. She prayed in a stone house to idols, shoddily made statues carved by a man who didn’t care for them, and sang songs about the Mother and Maiden.

Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger.

He could remember the sweet voices singing to them, only three or four in that whole stone house. There were not many who worshiped the Southern idols in the North. Not Bran, he thought. Not the dark featured sister whose name he’d forgotten. Not the dark featured older brother.

He had not prayed to his mother’s Gods since he realised that she was never coming home.

Karkond, the gruff man who Osha had convinced to take her and Rickon and Shaggy in when they first came to Skagos, had spat on the ground at Rickon’s feet when he told him of his Mama’s God’s. Rickon was only a boy of seven or eight at the time, a skinny thing that had not ate well in a year, and Karkond was a tall and thick Stone Born man. He told Rickon his mother was an Andal whore, and he said cruel things that even Osha had scowled at.

Even tall and thick men slept, so that night Rickon took Osha’s blade and cut Karkond’s big toe off his right foot, hacking quickly four times and then coming down with one hard thwak, and the man had woken up wailing and too late.

Osha had taken him and run, and Shaggy who had been sleeping in the Wood came and ran alongside them. They hid in the forest but had been dragged out by Stonemen who had heard the commotion. They recoiled at the sight of Shaggy, who growled and snapped at them, but did not attack. Rickon knew when he’d done wrong and he was going to show Karkond his face. He was no Craven. He went with them, but Shaggy still growled and followed close.

When the rest of the village had woken to Karkond’s screaming, Rickon told Osha and Rorthun the Chief, who was a Magnar’s nephew, what happened. Rorthun the Chief had laughed.

“Shouldn’ta called him moder a whore,” he chuckled to weeping Karkond, who was clutching his bleeding foot in one hand and his toe in the other, “A boy’s moder is him moder, even if she be Andal.”

Osha had begged Rorthun to be kind to them, putting her hand on his crotch right there in front of the whole village, but again the man laughed. His laugh was a throaty, growling sound, but Rickon could not feel scared. Rorthun didn’t much like children, Rickon could tell by the way he kept his distance, but he was still kind to Rickon and the other little ones and he never raised his voice louder than it already was.

“Don’ have the parts me like,” he laughed, “Not gonna kill a fockin Warg anyhow. That Direwolf’ll eat me happy if I touch him. No Direwolves on Skagos, only beyond the Wall. Not Skagosi, is you?”

“My name is Rickon Stark,” he said immediately, proudly, even though he had half forgotten what it meant to be a Stark. Osha slapped a hand over his mouth and when he licked it, it was salty with dirt and sweat. She did not pull it away like Bran might but rubbed it in his face. He pushed it away and walked forward. He was scared now, they might take him back to the Boltons to be skinned.

He lifted his chin and levelled Rorthun with a look that his brown sister might give, hard and stubborn, unyielding as the Wall. Shaggy growled lowly, as though to say, ‘look at this, look at my boy, pay attention’.

Rorthun’s smile dropped slightly, and he looked back on the warriors who had gripped their hands on their spears even tighter. Some closed in on them, some backed away. In this, the darkest Wolf Hour, with only a smouldering campfire to see by, Shaggydog’s eyes glowed a vicious, glowering, glowing green.

They didn’t like Outsiders on Skagos but didn’t turn away people who needed help. They liked Rickon’s hair and Osha’s eyes, so they had let them stay without asking questions. The North was an evil place now with no Starks in Winterfell, and Skagosi are First Men who honour Guest Right always. If more Northmen Greenlander’s came, they would offer bread and salt, Rickon knew.

“A Stark, is you?” Rorthun nodded, his smile all the way gone now, “Boltons is taken Winter’s Fall, you know?”

“I know,” Rickon said, shaking out of Osha’s grip where she was trying to drag him back. He could hear her breathing hard, she was scared too, “I’m going to take it back one day. I’m small now, but I’ll get big.”

“Get big,” Rorthun’s eyes softened slightly, but he looked down on Rickon wearily still, “Skagos don’ like Greenlanders much, but Starks is good people. Eddard Stark was good people. When time-come, we will send you back to take Winter’s Fall from the Red boy.”

Rorthun looked over Rickon’s head at Osha and nodded his head once, and Rickon wondered what it was that he felt he could not say out loud. He had dark Northerner’s look that made the boy’s heart squeeze for a father and brother whose faces he couldn’t remember quite right. They had been quiet and calm, he remembered, where Rorthun sparkled with mirth even when he was serious. Rorthun was also a foot taller and a foot wider than they had been, and a foot hairier as well.

“Get big on Skagos,” Rorthun grumbled, his eyes falling back on Rickon, “Learn Old Ways of the came-before, learn to fight like the First Man.”

At some point, Rickon didn’t know, Karkond had passed out, and when Rorthun announced to the village that Rickon, Osha and Shaggy were to be kept safe from Greenlanders, the man’s wails could not be heard. Rickon swiped the toe and pocketed it, still warm, and Rorthun raised an eyebrow.

Osha had smacked his head for cutting a man’s toe off, and then the healing woman had knocked him on the backs of his legs with her cane because Karkond got an infection and almost died. He was honour bound to stay and watch Karkond heal, but Karkond never bothered him again, and Osha had lost interest in him since they were staying with Rorthun. He seemed to be bothered by having nobody to make noise with.

Before he left the village on the shore, he buried Karkond’s toe at the foot of a Weir, which was covered in the dried blood of the last oathbreaker.

There were no Godswoods on Skagos, and Weirs stood freely wherever they liked, whether there was a face carved into it or not. Rickon had been scared of the Weir in Winter’s Fall, with its red face twisted in horror of the things it had seen, but now he liked that they watched him. It felt like his family could see him, wherever they were.

Brown brother, Red brother, Red sister, Brown sister, Bran. Moder. Fader.

The Gods had no names or faces, but those were the faces he saw when he prayed with blood oozing thickly out of his thumbs and into the Skagosi soil. Red as the sap of a Weir, Rickon bled into its roots, his young King’s blood stirring the Earth, and Forest, and Stream, and Stone.

**Author's Note:**

> Rickon deserved better than what the show gave him. They really just fucking killed the Wild Wolf :/ We could have had Skagos, I'm salty.
> 
> I love LORE and I'm gonna ramble a little here, but before I do feel free to comment some suggestions. I don't know where I'm taking this fic, only that I want Rickon to live. It can be things that happen on the Greenland that Rickon hears about, maybe Robb will survive due to Rickon's King's Blood counteracting Gendry's in the Red Witch's spell.   
I don't have a beta so, if u wanna point out my mistakes, do so, by all means.
> 
> A Westerosi Language Essay By Yours Truly uwu (v informal)
> 
> I think of the Old Tongue as the Celtic languages, which was prominent in England before the Roman Occupation (AD 46-410) and then the Germanic tribes' invasion (AD 450-1066). Switching it around a little, the Westerosi would have spoken Old Tongue, before the Andal Invasion (Germanic tribes), which introduced the Andalese vocabulary and then the Rhoynar came to Dorne and that introduced Valerian vocabulary (since Rhoyne was like right there, I'm unclear on whether or not the Rhoynar had their own language, though). And all of this mashed together gave rise to what I assume is like a 'Middle Westerosi' language that is spoken in Westeros during canon. English is a majority Germanic language, I think, so most of the Westerosi is based in Andal(ese?).  
The Free Folk beyond the wall, while not part of the seven kingdoms are more familiar with the common Westerosi tongue, but I believe the Skagosi, like the Iron Islanders, would have been harder for the Andals to reach. However, the Ironborn are pirates and would, therefore, get involved in language one way or another through reaving, particularly along the Westerlands. The Stoneborn, however, are first men with a Northern disposition to keep to themselves and distrust outsiders, meaning that they would have kept to themselves and to their own language. The 'Magnar', which I like to think is not a family name but a position held as the head 'chief' of the island, would likely know some Westerosi and would teach their family, like Rorthun (completely fucking made up names hell yeah) how to speak it. Heavily accented, using direct translation from the dialect of Old Tongue that is spoken on Skagos.   
Notes about my interpretations, based in assumptions about First Men tradition- places and oaths aren't referred to in past tense (Winter's Fall is taken by Boltons), but people can be (Eddard Stark was good people). Places and oaths are permanent, but people are not. Northerners appear to give oaths in perpetuity, like Dany said in season 7 (but really it wasn't Jon's oath to uphold, he's a targ), Winterfell remains Winterfell no matter who holds it, duh, but the "the dead can't hear, boy" Tormund said that at some point I think. The dead are dead, moved on, etc. Just a note, don't mind me.  
Also, note Rickon moving from Mamma and Da to Moder and Fader. He's forgetting them as time goes on, and he uses his family his 'New Gods', his idols, there but unseen and unreachable, and in no particular order. Robb would be the Father, because Rickon doesn't remember much about Ned and Ned would be the Stranger bc he dead :/. I'm being sad, sorry.  
Also, Jon doesn't follow the Seven. Arya doesn't, because she favoured her father. Bran lost faith in them when Rickon did and he had to put more stock in the Old Gods due to his 'condition'. Rickon was too young to care. Robb does bc he love him mommy, Sansa does bc duh. The singing voices Rickon speaks about is a memory of his mother, Robb, Sansa and Bran singing together with Septa Mordane. Arya ran tf off ig.  
in conclusion send me your lore theories i wanna lick them. also critique mine.


End file.
